


Where There's Will

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alzheimer's Disease, Angst, Backstory, Canon Dialogue, Canonical Character Death, Community: hc_bingo, Episode: s02e07 Critical, Episode: s02e22 God Mode, Episode: s03e12 Aletheia, Finch whump, Gen, Hospitals, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: "Even if I had a phobia, Mr. Reese, now would not be the time for it."





	Where There's Will

**Author's Note:**

> For the 'phobias' square on my hc_bingo card.

February 10, 1982

Aside from being born, which he obviously couldn't remember, Harold managed to avoid setting foot in a hospital until he was twenty-one.

One year earlier, Nathan and he had met in the study hall when Harold, hurrying between the rows, had managed to trip over Nathan’s backpack, his foot caught in the strap. Others around him had laughed, but Nathan hadn't. He’d helped Harold up, dusted him off, and somehow that was the beginning of his closest friendship.

Harold couldn't believe how lucky he’d become. His friends back in Lassiter had been people he could occasionally show off to, but none of them were remotely on his level. Nathan _was_. He had drive and intelligence and people skills. He was already halfway to setting up his own company, and had promised Harold a job after college. Harold was still meticulously hacking his way through his tuition fees, so a legitimate income would be very useful.

They’d made a lot of plans like that, in the first few months of knowing each other. Strangely enough, none of those plans included a baby.

Harold ended up sitting beside Nathan in the waiting room of the maternity hospital, while Olivia struggled through her labour.

Bright and ambitious as he was, Nathan was still just nineteen years old, and the thought of becoming a father scared the hell out of him. He’d been in with Olivia for a little while earlier, but he was panicking worse than anyone, so they’d turfed him out to go wait with his friend.

Harold was having a bad time of it. For someone who liked to spend most of his time alone with his work, the bustle and noise of strangers, the weird smells and unexplained noises were all setting his teeth on edge. And though the muffled intermittent screaming was to be expected, it was far from comfortable to endure.

To make matters worse, as it turned out, one of the women who had worked at The Pines retirement home, where Harold had admitted his father, now worked at this reception in Massachusetts. He’d spent the past few hours with his head down, fringe hanging over his glasses, silently praying she wouldn't recognise him. If she did, she’d likely remember the government men who had come looking for him at The Pines.

It would have been far more sensible to say no. Sitting here was downright dangerous for Harold. But Nathan had begged his support, and Harold couldn't just abandon him to face this day on his own.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he reminded Nathan, for the seventh time, who was worrying about everything, despite preparing for this for the past few months. He patted Nathan’s curled fists, which were pressed together in his lap. “You’re going to be a great dad, you know?”

He said this even though it was vaguely depressing to think of his best friend becoming a father, when Harold had recently lost his own to Alzheimer's.

Then along the hallway, they both heard the sounds change distinctly to a baby’s cries, and Nathan’s face _lit up_ with joy. A few short moments later, the midwife popped her head round the door.

“Nathan, your son is here. Would you like to come and say hello?”

 

September 27, 2010

 

As midnight ticked over into early hours of morning, Harold stared blankly, helplessly at the empty screen, where Nathan’s picture had been. The list of irrelevant numbers had vanished, exactly as Harold had programmed the Machine.

So that was that. Nathan’s life, in less than a blink of an eye. Along with many others, whose names Harold had never bothered to learn.

But he could find out. He could remember them.

He opened a new window and quickly typed out all the SSNs he had glimpsed while skimming through the list for Nathan’s. Some of them were partial, and he spent the next few hours searching for them, finding their names and photographs, heedless of the blood sliding down his back. He couldn't let these people fade from memory. He couldn't let his friend be taken, and do nothing.

When he was done, he stared at the list of his failures, took off his glasses, put his head in his hands and wept.

He fell asleep like that, dreamt he could hear Grace frantically calling his name, and woke in extreme agony.

For a long moment he was paralysed, unable to lift his head off the desk. Then slowly and with great effort he managed to sit upright, holding onto his head, which felt like it had been severed from his shoulders. Wheeling the chair over to the drawers with his feet, he found Nathan’s stash of painkillers. The ones he’d said were for a squash injury, when in fact he’d been hurt while trying to save the irrelevants. Harold cried again, rubbing his thumb over the name on the label. It was a while before he managed to get the lid off.

Breathing deeply in an attempt to manage the pain, Harold eventually screwed up the courage to go look at his injury in the library’s washroom. He took a hand mirror with him, and a thick, square pad of gauze. He almost passed out from pressing on it. He made a feeble attempt at washing the dried, cracked blood from his back, ruining a few towels in the process. When he limped back to the desk, he found there was more blood on the wooden seat. Harold kicked it away furiously and, clinging to his crutch, went to find the makeshift bed to sleep on.

He lived for several days in the library, tacking up a list of Numbers and making sure Grace would be alright financially, before he reluctantly admitted to himself that even though he was technically dead now, he still had to seek medical help.

 

October 1, 2010

 

“You were caught up in the ferry bombing? It’s been five days. Why didn't you seek treatment right away?”

“My best friend of thirty years died. I had other things on my mind. Also, I'm not a fan of hospitals. I prefer to avoid them at all costs.”

“I see. I'm going to bring a specialist in on this. It’s very likely you’ll need surgery.”

“Surgery? Can’t you just give me a neck brace?”

The doctor shook his head. “We don’t recommend hard collars for this type of injury. There’s your lower back to consider, as well as your limp. If you haven’t been seen by a doctor, where did you get the crutch?”

“A friend,” Harold lied. He’d taken it from the man on the cot next to his, the day of the bombing. That man had been missing a leg.

They transferred Harold to a different hospital for surgery. He was to undergo an anterior cervical decompression with fusion. Harold submitted himself to nil-by-mouth and all the rest of it. The hospital environment was so unfamiliar, it made retreating from reality easier. They gave him much better drugs, and he slept.

 

October 2, 2010

 

It was after the surgery that the fear really set in. They had warned him that he might have difficulty breathing and swallowing, because it was necessary to move the esophagus and voice box slightly to one side during surgery in order to reach his spine. It was extremely disconcerting. He was on the verge of a panic attack more than once.

He didn't know the time. That unnerved him too. They’d taken off his watch. He couldn't turn over in the bed to see if there was a clock on a wall somewhere.

What saved him…was the arrival of Nathan’s son. “Uncle Harold!”

Harold couldn't speak louder than a pained whisper, but he managed two slow words. “Will? How…?”

“They called me. You put me down as your next of kin.”

Harold blinked and then sighed. “So I did.” And then his memory flashed on the first time Nathan had handed over little Will for him to hold, and his eyes filled with tears. “I'm so...sorry about your father.“

“I know. It’s been a big shock to all of us. But you’re going to get better. I’ll make sure of it.”

 

October 5, 2012

 

"Tell me, Mr. Reese, how do you feel about hospitals?"

"They've never bothered me."

"I'm glad to hear it. They make me aggressively uneasy."


End file.
